Panasonic AG AF100 Workflow

Let me preface this post with a short scenario.  You're filming with your Panasonic AG AF100 -- or maybe even two -- for the last 12 hours.  It's now the end of the day and the last thing you want to do is go to your hotel room and offload a mano's (spanish) worth of cards.  Normally you would sit down with your laptop, hook up your two bus powered drives, launch ShotPut Pro and feed in one card at a time.  Fastforward several hours and come 2am you're done.

Well my hero, Tim Irwin, asked me the other day if I knew of any multi-slot card reader for SDHC/SCXC cards and I said, I just so happen to.  But I've been so busy I haven't done much research on them.  They're made by a Chinese comapny called Elecom.  And they make various version of them.  Some with two SDHC slots and a few USB slots and the one we like -- what I call the SDCube (Elecom MR-C27 SD Card Reader) -- with four slots.  It comes in black and white and has six sides, hence the cube.

I sent Tim the link I had and he has since found a website, Geek Stuff 4 U, that distributes them AND the site is in english.  The SDCube runs for 3,980 yen, about $50.

We've both got one on order and will let you know how it works.  Tim is taking one to Australia this week and will put it though the paces.  Ideally, you hook up your SDCube, load your 4 shot SDHC cards, and tell ShotPut Pro to copy the four cards to the two drives and then you fall asleep while it does all the work.  We'll see if it really works that good.

Elecom makes a bunch of other cool little card readers that may better suit your needs.  Check 'em out.

Information Sheet

• MAKER/MODEL -- Elecom/MR-C27 SD Card Reader
• INTERFACE -- USB2.0/1.1
• POWER SUPPLY -- USB Powered
• TRANSFER RATE -- 480Mbps
• DIMENSIONS -- 36.0 x 36.0 x 38.5mm